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		<header>
			<h1>No more recycling centre laptops</h1>
			<p>Day 01053: <time>Tuesday, 2018 January 23</time></p>
		</header>
<section id="cleaning">
	<h2>Apartment cleaning</h2>
	<p>
		Today&apos;s main cleaning project was to move everything I&apos;ve gathered and am storing form my mother into the living room, where she&apos;s supposed to be storing her stuff.
		She still hasn&apos;t brought a single item over, but I&apos;ve gathered several items I think she&apos;d want.
		Cat litter buckets, children&apos;s books, crayons ...
		If it turns out she&apos;s not interested, we can just give any of these away; they didn&apos;t cost me a dime.
		I was just in the right place and time to get them.
		I&apos;ve been storing them in my own space, but she&apos;s not even <strong>*using*</strong> her storage space and these items are here for <strong>*her*</strong>
	</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;ve also cleared <strong>*everything*</strong> out of my bedroom unless it has a specific place in there it belongs.
		If all goes well, I&apos;ll get it all sorted tomorrow and have what should belong in there put back in specific spots.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="potatoes">
	<h2>Potatoes</h2>
	<p>
		A coworker of mine told me potatoes are bad for joint health, especially when you&apos;re going to be exercising, such as on my bike trips to Eugene.
		My breakfast options for the day were either leftover potato gnocchi and peas or leftover fake cheese bread, and the cheese bread didn&apos;t seem very appetizing, so I did some research online.
		I little at all indicating that potatoes have any effect whatsoever on joint health, and what I did see was all rumours, and have not even been scientifically studied.
		Of these rumours, most of them only applied to people with existing arthritis, anyway.
	</p>
	<p>
		I did find an <a href="https://www.marksdailyapple.com/potatoes-healthy/">interesting passage</a> completely unrelated to joint health though:
	</p>
	<blockquote cite="https://www.marksdailyapple.com/potatoes-healthy/">
		<p>
			These days, the most common potatoes, like Russets, also tend to have the lowest amount of glycoalkaloids (see Stephan’s chart); this is no accident, instead being the product of generations of careful agricultural selection by farmers.
			Throughout history, then, humans have tended to avoid the bulk of potato glycoalkaloids, either unwittingly, by peeling potato skins, or by selecting the low-glycoalkaloid varieties that didn’t provoke stomachaches, digestive issues, or inflammation and sold well at the market.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		We&apos;ve altered the evolution of potatoes, or at least the common varieties of them that we tend to eat.
		It&apos;s yet another example of how we humans tend to change the species around us to better suit our own purposes.
		In this case, we&apos;ve reduced the glycoalkaloid content; glycoalkaloid is used by potato plants to keep away pests that would otherwise feed on them.
		Pests such as us.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="laptop">
	<h2>Laptop shopping</h2>
	<p>
		Usually when I go into the recycling centre, I&apos;m dealing with clerks that seem a bit geeky.
		They understand that the hardware doesn&apos;t work for all purposes, and they don&apos;t seem to have a problem with my returns.
		However, this time, I dealt with someone who was more of a businessperson than a geek.
		They don&apos;t like that I keep bringing laptops back, and they&apos;ve informed me that they&apos;re putting a cap on my returns now.
		It was unclear whether the laptop I&apos;d just bought before they informed me of the cap they were placing on me could be returned at all after leaving the store, so I returned it right away.
		After all, it wasn&apos;t like they could refuse the return when they hadn&apos;t informed me beforehand that the cap was now in place, and it sounded like I wouldn&apos;t be able to return it this time.
	</p>
	<p>
		Furthermore, it seems that unlike the geeks, they don&apos;t like me exchanging the operating system on the machine.
		They don&apos;t seem to understand that changing the operating system isn&apos;t at all different from changing the installed applications, and that a computer isn&apos;t useful when you can&apos;t change the software to match your needs.
		When I returned it, I explained I was doing so because I couldn&apos;t guarantee the machine would even work.
		They kept trying to claim that the machines work perfectly when they sell them, and that by changing the operating system, I&apos;m the one to blame for the dysfunction; I should buy the machine, not swap the operating system, and not return it.
		Um.
		No.
		The machine doesn&apos;t work that way, as it it doesn&apos;t do the things I need it to do.
		Leaving Linux Mint on the machine makes the thing unusable, as I can&apos;t trust it with my data.
		Besides, their hardware is wonky.
		Some of it is simply under-documented because the manufacturer wants to be stupid and secretive.
		Technically, that hardware itself isn&apos;t wonky, just the conditions that surround it are.
		That&apos;s not <strong>*my*</strong> fault.
		Some of their hardware has actual <abbr title="digital restrictions management">DRM</abbr> in it though.
		That hardware <strong>*is*</strong> wonky.
		The <abbr title="digital restrictions management">DRM</abbr> itself probably isn&apos;t in the hardware itself, but the firmware, however, it&apos;s highly likely the hardware&apos;s designed to reject firmware that isn&apos;t signed by the manufacture, in which case the hardware is still, by design, wonky.
	</p>
	<p>
		In any case, it seems I can&apos;t use the recycling centre to procure laptops unless I want to risk buying machines that don&apos;t function at all for my purposes; basically giant paperweights.
		I could still use them for parts, but not really.
		I could get hard drives and <abbr title="random-access memory">RAM</abbr> there, except that I already have more of those things than I need.
		I could get Wi-Fi cards there, but if they&apos;re under-documented, I&apos;m going to be blamed for the fact that they don&apos;t work, so I won&apos;t be able to return them.
	</p>
	<p>
		With this recycling centre being unreasonable, and with no other known computer-recycling centres in the area, my only choice now is to buy online.
		I&apos;ve been wavering back and forth between continually trying the recycling centre and buying a new machine online, but now, it looks like my options are limited.
		I have no choice now but to buy a new machine.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="errands">
	<h2>Errand day</h2>
	<p>
		Today turned out to be mostly an errand day.
		I took my trip to Eugene, I ran my regular Tuesday errands (checking the Bi-Mart lucky numbers and depositing my pay cheque at the credit union), dropped off my ballet of the election, went out to buy groceries, and washed my laundry for the week.
		Still, I got a fair amount done in the apartment too.
		During my errands, my bike seat came loose though, making it difficult and painful to ride.
		If I&apos;d remembered, I&apos;d&apos;ve found my wrench while i was moving stuff out of my bedroom and tightened the thing up, but now, that&apos;s not an option until tomorrow.
		I moved everything out into piles, so finding any specific item isn&apos;t feasible.
		It&apos;ll have to wait until I&apos;ve sorted everything.
	</p>
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